Apr 20, 2023   SOURCE: BusinessWire

Reactive Technologies Brings World’s Most Accurate Inertia Measurements to Australia

Reactive Technologies (“Reactive”), the grid resilience technology company that provides the world’s most accurate measurements of inertia and other electric grid functions, today announced that it has secured $1.43 million Australian dollars (about 959,000 USD; 780,000 GBP) from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) for a trial project to provide real-time, accurate grid inertia measurements. The Victoria State Government Department of Energy, Environment, and Climate Action (DEECA) also provided funds for the project.

Reactive secured the funding through ARENA’s Advancing Renewables Program, which supports projects that optimize the transition to renewable energy. The trial will be deployed with the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) and supported by DEECA, Melbourne Energy Institute (University of Melbourne), and Neoen. The trial will operate over a range of conditions including high solar, high wind, and high demand periods across Victoria. Neoen’s Victorian Big Battery, a utility-scale energy storage installation, will send a small signal into the grid that Reactive’s Extensible Measurement Units (XMUs) will measure. Following the XMUs’ measurement of the signal, Reactive’s patented GridMetrix® software will analyze the data and allow AEMO to view inertia values in real time on the GridMetrix® dashboard.

With two-thirds of its coal power stations expected to close by 2040, accurate grid inertia measurements will be crucial to enabling more renewables to connect to Australia’s grid. Grid inertia – the ability of generators to maintain a steady power supply in the face of disruptions – becomes harder to track and measure with legacy tools as more renewable generators are added to a grid. To meet this challenge on grids around the world, Reactive’s GridMetrix® tool provides new levels of visibility into grid functions, replacing estimates and modeling of inertia and enabling operators to predict and plan for guaranteed sources of inertia to keep the power grid stable.

“We are proud to have earned this funding from ARENA, and we are eager to show how powerful our technology is when it comes to facilitating a swift and smooth transition to net zero carbon grids without sacrificing reliability or resilience,” said Marc Borrett, CEO of Reactive Technologies. “Australia is one of many countries around the world that is taking admirable steps toward accelerating their energy transition and have rightly identified measurement of inertia as a crucial component of that transition. We applaud the roles the federal and Victorian governments are playing in this project and look forward to deepening our collaboration with ARENA and other Australian government agencies as we begin our work.”

“Continuous measurement of inertia will become highly valuable as it will allow less conservative grid operation and ultimately the ability to accommodate more non-synchronous generation such as solar and wind,” said Darren Miller, CEO of ARENA. “Reactive Technologies’ measurement tools could change the way the NEM is managed. With real-time data available to AEMO, they could also then optimize customer-side generation which has been proven to contribute as much as 30 percent of total inertia to the National Grid in the United Kingdom.”

Reactive Technologies was founded in Finland and the UK and has deployed its technology in the UK, Japan, Italy, and New Zealand. The company expanded to North America in 2022, offering the most accurate measurements of inertia and other grid functions and helping to curb climate change with tools that allow for the maintenance of grid reliability while adding renewables. Reactive gives utilities and grid operators critical intel for maintaining resilience as they add renewables and DERs, and will continue its global expansion as more countries move to accelerate the transition to a zero-carbon power grid.

About Reactive Technologies

Reactive Technologies is a grid resilience technology company helping grid operators, electric utilities, and regulators transition to net zero and ensure resilient renewables-based power grids. Reactive’s products, including the first-of-its-kind GridMetrix® technology, bring unprecedented transparency to grid operations by measuring grid inertia and other functions with 95% accuracy–a vast improvement over the projections and estimates they are replacing. Reactive has worked with some of the most advanced electric utilities in the world and consistently delivers accurate grid data that informs better planning, full utilization of electricity supplies, and cost savings while enabling an accelerated transition to clean energy. Reactive is backed by several of the world’s leading climate tech venture and management firms, including BGF, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Eaton, Toshiba and Accenture Ventures. Reactive Technologies is a 2022 Bloomberg New Energy Finance Pioneers winner.